Internet F-body Gathering - Memphis '97

1760 miles from home, Memphis '97 was an awesome adventure. I even managed to come away with
a plaque for longest distance trailered. A special thanks to Dynojet Research for providing my tow vehicle.

My first experience with drag racing this car at Memphis was tons of fun. The car was such a different animal down
there. Sea level really made a huge difference. About 60hp difference. Tire spin was a big problem off the line,
and most of the time also when I hit second.

Oddly enough, my best run Friday was a 13.93@102.22, while running one of
the fastest cars there. Brad Brand ran an 11.24@123.40 that pass. Outstanding!

Mike Heffner consistently ran at least 7/10ths quicker than me due to his
automatic and drag radials. Our speeds were not that much different though.

The best 60' time I could manage all weekend was a 2.199.

During the second round of eliminations, I broke out of my 14.00 dial-in with
a 13.90@102.04 pass. The car had been consistent all day in the low 14.0x's, but letting it cool down a long time
between runs made a big difference.

Here are two shots of me coming through turn 8 of the road race course.

Here I am chasing Wynand Depuy down the back straight.

The road racing is what I really wanted to go to Memphis for. And I got what I wanted. While it rained all Friday
night and Saturday morning, we road raced in the wet. The car never got overly loose, so I kept getting faster
and faster.

During the second session, I went out first, took a very slow sighting lap, then hammered it down the front straight.
I managed to pass everybody but second place. I ran out of gas with a few laps to go, and spectators said I would
have passed second place (Jeff Creech) within another lap or two.

After that, they bumped me from the intermediate to expert class, where almost everyone was on autocross tires
or in some cases had big brake mods. I still did well, but it was hard to catch those guys on race tires with my
stock street GS-C's. After my last session, I pyrometered my front brake rotors. They pegged my infrared gun which
has a limit of 992 degrees fahrenheit! The next highest temperature I saw from anyone else was 770 degrees. Next
year, I'll be back with 13" front brakes and GS-CS's.

Here is a collection of AVI's my dad shot during the Memphis event. They are rather large, but cover a wide range
of areas from Memphis. The inside view of the road race course gives you a good idea of what I did from the cockpit.